A Vindication on the Rights of Sparrow
by amitai
Summary: Staring morosely at his rum, Jack decided that this was going to be a Really Big Problem. SLASH, folks... enjoy!


This monster stretched from being a nice little fourteen or fifteen page oneshot into a rampaging thirty-three page MONSTER which ate my mind until I finished it. Grr.

OK, now I'm going to re-iterate something for people who didn't listen the first time.

Reader, meet SLASH. SLASH, meet reader. Now, I want you two to play nicely with each other; reader, I've personally house-trained my SLASH, and I know that he's not going to do anything nasty to you, unless you dislike him. SLASH can tell if you dislike them, and they disgust you accordingly. If you dislike my SLASH, please go elsewhere. (Doesn't this sound worryingly like 'Jane Eyre'? Y'know - 'reader, I married him', etc? shudders)

For the uninitiated, SLASH HOMOSEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS. A man loving a man, and doing appropriate man-loving things to him. The slash aspect of this is pretty toned down, I think, as far as concerns Jack and Will, but there is mention of rape and child abuse, so if that offends you, please leave. I will have no tolerance for flamers; I warned you. In the summary, I warned you. I've warned you again here. If you flame me, you probably can't read, or you're so mean-spirited, you decided to flame mefor the sake of it. That's just childishly cruel, and you should really grow up.

On the other hand, all you sane, adult (well, relatively...) people, I welcome any criticism.

OMG- this is gonna be AU, isn't it? What with Dead Man's Chest out! Hmm... oh well. Here you are anyway.

Thanks!

DISCLAIMER: I could barely afford the ticket. How in hell would I afford the movie?

* * *

Staring morosely down at his rum – which was strange, as, to his knowledge, he had never looked morosely at anything alcoholic – Jack decided that this was going to be a Really Big Problem. 

Apart from anything, the Pearl was in berth for however long it took for this God-forsaken weather to blow over – which meant that Jack was stuck in this God-forsaken pub until the God-forsaken weather blew over, or until he got up the courage (or got drunk enough) to brave the storm outside, and run back to his Pearl. Equally, all his money was in the Pearl or in the barman's fist now, so he was going to have to take a soaking pretty soon, or risk being only half drunk for the rest of the evening, which would be simply insupportable.

But the Really Big Problem was proving to be his wayward first mate, Will Turner.

Will had joined his crew after his marriage with Elizabeth had fallen quietly and companionably apart, and he had been moved up to first mate two years later, after Gibbs had resigned, and gone to live in a small cottage somewhere above Tortuga, with sheep, chickens, a pretty young girl and too much alcohol. No one resented the promotion, not even the notoriously fiery tempered Anamaria, who resented almost everything Jack did. It seemed that Will had a knack for managing Anamaria which Jack had never picked up, because she never minded doing things for him, though she would throw a fit if Jack asked her to do it.

Jack had once asked if Will thought she was in love with him, and Will had thrown back his head and laughed.

"Ana's not in love with me, Jack." He'd said, still laughing, "She just likes being treated with a bit of respect."

Jack had tried treating Anamaria with a bit of respect, and got slapped round the face and yelled at for his pains. After that, he decided to let Will deal with the fiery tempered native – it was safer, and infinitely less painful for Captain Jack Sparrow's dignity. And hisface.

Installing Will as first mate turned out to be an excellent idea – after three years on the Pearl, Will, ever a quick learner, knew her almost as well as Jack. Admittedly, he'd had a good chance to find out all her tricks and turns, as he had served his apprenticeship close under Jack's wing. Jack could appear mad, but he was no a fool despite that, and he wasn't about to let a lad a pretty and as friendly as Will loose on the crew. He'd be devoured within seconds.

As it turned out, he need not have worried. Will had made friends with all the crew of the Pearl within a week, and after everyone saw him fighting, no one even thought of calling him 'pretty boy'. Or even making lewd suggestions. Will carried that sword with him everywhere, and no one had the slightest doubt that he knew how to use it.

No, the only Really Big Problem with Will right now was that he wasn't here. He wasn't where Jack could cling onto him and make him get wet too on a mad dash to the Pearl, and they couldn't fall into Jack's cabin, breathless and laughing like they had done so many times before.

No one begrudged Jack his close friendship with Will, and nor did anyone accuse Will of taking advantage of it, for he never had. There was, of course, always the issue that Jack would have keel-hauled anyone who even suggested that Will was taking advantage of his friendship.

Jack decided, drunkenly, that another Extremely Big Problem he had was that being drunk allowed him to be distracted far too easily. And he should probably do something about that whole talking-about-himself-in-the-third person issue.

"Where'sh William?" he slurred, standing up, and suddenly feeling even more drunk than he had when he was sat down safely. "William?"

"No one here of that name, luv!" A flabby, pallid whore said, lewdly, "But I'm sure I can take his place anytime…"

"Ye?" Jack looked at her, and felt inordinately pleased with himself when he found that he still had the coordination left to raise one eyebrow, "I wouldn't dare take on one of ye, madam, let alone the two I'm sheeing now."

The whore huffed indignantly, but blessedly left him alone. Jack thought that one decent slap round the face tonight would do for him, and this one looked like she could pack quite a healthy wallop. He couldn't pass out just yet. He hadn't found William yet.

He gathered a couple of crew members around him – the more trustworthy ones, Mr. Cotton, Anamaria (fiery, but trustworthy nonetheless), Ned Kilvert, an old friend of Bootstraps who had joined a year ago on account of Will, Tawney McGry, a grizzled man who looked like a poster boy for stereotyped pirates. He even had an eye patch – but he was a mean hand with a sword, and he knew more about cannons than any man Jack had ever met. Including Will, who, Jack firmly believed, could probably build a cannon out of scrap metal.

Then, having gathered his trusty crew members about him, and having given remarkably clear orders to the rest of the crew to be back as soon as the weather cleared up, he turned to Anamaria, and slurred, carefully,

"Anamaria. Ye haven' by any chanshe sheen Will'am about here?"

She wrinkled her nose in distaste, then said, clearly, "Will didn't leave the Pearl with us. Far as I know, he's still there – unless he decided to go carousing without his captain's watchful eye on him to spoil his fun…"

"I don't shpoil Will's fun!" Jack protested, still slurring, but already making his extraordinarily steady way out of the pub. It was miraculous what sea legs could do for a person. Ordinarily, Jack had enormous difficulty walking on land that didn't roll from side to side, but when he was drunk, the world _was_ rolling from side to side, so he had very little difficulty at all. He used this as his excuse to remain almost perpetually drunk while he was on land. The only person it held water with was the bar-tender, and that was because he could always get a healthy amount of money out of a drunk like Jack.

Anamaria had only ever known one person put a lid on Jack's drinking, and that was Will. Sometimes she thought that Will was better for Jack than he knew. And sometimes, she knew that Will was better for Jack than he knew, because Jack had a habit of discarding things he knew were good for him.

Sighing, the other four pirates followed him out into the torrential rain, and Jack led their mad dash back to the Pearl.

* * *

By the time they reached the Pearl, the cold and the wet had practically shocked Jack into sobriety. What he saw on deck pushed him the whole way back into being stone-cold-sober in the worst way possible. 

Will was huddled up on deck, shivering with cold (and just how long had he been there, anyway?), his thin linen shirt see-through and sticking to him with rain water. Jack, not thinking, took off his own coat and wrapped it around his shivering friend.

"Ye fool!" he roared in his ear, over the wind. "Why didn' ye go inside?"

"J-Jack?" Will clung to him, and Jack softened.

"Let's get ye inside, Sweet William." He sighed.

"Jack… I can't… c-can't move…" Will said, staring up at him. "C-couldn't help it…"

"Will?"

Will reached out to him with the hand that had been trapped between his legs and his chest as he lay, curled up on the rain-lashed deck. Jack stared in horror. Will's hand was dripping with blood, and as he looked down, he could see that there was a huge red stain across the front of the shirt, spreading easily because of the shirt's sodden texture.

"I th-thought you'd ne-never come." Will chattered out, between rattling teeth, his entire body shaking with his violent shivers. "I th-thought I'd d-d-die without y-you kn-knowing…"

The mention of death galvanised Jack into action. "Get a doctor." He ordered Tawney, harshly, ignoring what Will had just said "Anamaria, Ned, open the door for me. Mr. Cotton, I want hot water – I don't care how ye get the stuff, beg, borrow, bargain, or steal it, I don' care, just get me a bathful of hot water _quickly_." He picked Will up – and the younger man felt absurdly light in his arms – and took him into his cabin.

Dismissing Ned and Anamaria, he set about getting Will warm.

First of all, he stripped the shivering man down to the skin, and threw the sodden, bloody clothes into a corner with distaste. Then, handing him a mug of rum and ordering him to drink as much of it as he could, he wrapped a blanket around Will's still-shivering shoulders, and started chaffing his blue feet with another rough square of blanket. By the time Mr. Cotton and Ned arrived with the tub of water, Will's hands and feet were beginning to look human again, and his shivers were starting to abate somewhat.

Jack knew all too well that once the crisis was over, he was going have to pay for this over-expenditure of his own energy, but he didn't care at the moment. He thanked the two men absently, and, picking Will bodily up, he carried him over to the tub, and dumped him in.

The blanket had fallen off, exposing the still-sluggishly bleeding wound, which was quickly turning the bathwater red. Jack, against his own wishes, took a good look at it. Somehow, a sword or a blade of some sort had bitten into his William – where had that come from? – had bitten into _William_, no 'his' about it, just above his hip bone. It wasn't deep, nor was it intended to do any real damage, just cause some discomfort, but it was still bleeding, it could still turn nasty, and Jack still had no idea of how it had happened, nor why Will had been lying on the deck when he could have been warm in the cabin. What had happened to Will tonight?

Why hadn't he been with Jack when it had happened?

Jack shook his head to clear it of such thoughts, and got back to the much more important task of getting Will warm and clean before the water made him bleed to death.

"'M sorry." Will moaned, almost incoherent with a fever of some sort – almost undoubtedly from being outside in the pouring rain for God only knew how long; long enough, but the thankfully not long enough to bleed to death. Jack shuddered to think of what he would have felt on coming back to the Pearl and finding Will's corpse on the deck.

He would never have sailed in her again, that was for sure.

By the time the doctor arrived, Will was fully unconscious on the bed. Jack hadn't dared put a shirt on him, because of the wound, but he'd struggled to get him into a pair of trousers, to preserve the younger man's modesty, and Will no longer looked like he was about to die from the cold. He wasn't shivering anymore; in fact, he was flushed, and looked sweaty to Jack, but how could that be? He'd been freezing to the touch not ten minutes before… he couldn't possibly be too hot now, could he?

"I hope that this is worth my…" the doctor took one look at Jack's face, and wisely swallowed the rest of his sentence. "What's the matter with him?"

Dumbly, Jack pointed, and the doctor tsked, and bent over Will. After a few moments, he motioned to his slave, and was handed his bag.

Jack had to look away, for though he wouldn't leave the room and abandon Will to the tender mercies of a mercenary doctor, he couldn't watch what said doctor was doing.

"You caught it just in time." The doctor looked up at Jack finally, while he unravelled a long length of bandaging. "It'll heal quite nicely. If I were you, I'd set about finding who did it."

Jack nodded. "And, er…" he found that his throat had gummed up with the long, silent wait, and he cleared it, awkward for the first time in years. "What about illness? Is he sick?"

"Oh, yes, your friend's sick." The doctor said, and Jack's eyes narrowed at his flippancy. "It's just a fever, should break soon. If it doesn't break in three days, call me again. Or find the nearest port you can, and make sure he gets a doctor fast, or you'll lose him to pneumonia."

"Thank ye, doctor." Jack nodded again, and the words felt foreign on his tongue, even though he was honestly grateful to the severe-suited old man. "Right. Teach me how to treat this wound of his, and then leave me with the stuff to deal with it."

"It'll cost you extra." The doctor warned him, sharply.

Jack's teeth flashed gold in the candle-light. "Ah, but I think I've got the money for this, just this once. Savvy?"

"I get you." The doctor nodded, wryly, and set about teaching Jack the rudiments of how to dress Will's wound.

For the next two days, Jack kept an unblinking vigil over Will, taking only such breaks as were absolutely necessary for brief exercise, food and the toilet. Will murmured incomprehensible things, which varied from smithy references to pleas for more rum. Occasionally, he would say something which would catch Jack's attention – the most obvious being "John, you bastard, what are you doing?" – but the strange, unrelated sentences never seemed to make any sense whatsoever when taken out of context, as they had to be, and Jack was beginning to despair of cracking this particular mystery. Will's mind seemed even more fragile than his body, at the moment, and Jack didn't intend to jeopardise Will's health by pressing him about things before he was fully fit.

By midday on the third day, Jack was on the verge of calling again for the doctor. Will seemed no better, Jack couldn't tell whether the fever had broken or not, and his William seemed to be wasting away in front of his eyes. He got as far as the door, when Will's eyes shot open, and he said, in a low, hoarse voice,

"Jack? Are you there? Why am I…" he broke off, coughing. "Why am I in your cabin? Jack?"

That got Jack back to Will's side in a hurry.

His friend had sat up, and stared at Jack with wide, confused eyes. "So you are here?" he whispered, rather dazedly, his voice raw from the fever-talk and fever-screams. "What am _I _doing here? Wh…"

"Hush." Jack soothed, and put one hand to his forehead. He would have sworn a holy oath that he was cooler than he had been five minutes ago. "Ye were sick."

"I can be sick in my own cabin, I don't need to take over yours." Will said, his voice little more than a whisper, but no less sarcastic, for all that.

"We found ye outside my cabin." Jack said, and forced Will to lie down again. "It was easier t' bring ye in here than take ye to ye're own, and then it was raining too hard t' move ye." The excuse rolled easily off his tongue, but with that done, he gave Will a piercing look. "Ye were off your head, boy. What the hell happened t'ye?" Will didn't answer, and when Jack looked at him, he could see that his eyes were closed. "Fine, lad." Jack sighed, knowing that Will wasn't asleep, but that he wasn't going to answer the question, either. "Have it yer own way. But I will find out somehow, ye get me?"

* * *

Jack nearly had a fit, three days later, when he came into his cabin from the foredeck and found that Will wasn't there. He scoured the entire Pearl for his friend, and eventually found him back in his own cabin, lying on the bed as if completely exhausted. 

"What the fuck do ye think ye're doin'!" he screamed hoarsely at him.

Will raised his head, tiredly, as if it took an enormous effort to perform even just that simple task. "I'm moving back into my cabin." He said, completely shattered, and let his head fall back onto the little pillow.

"The hell ye are." Jack growled.

"If you're going to move me," Will said, not even bothering to open his eyes. "You're going to have to wait, because I can't wake up enough to move."

"I think I can manage, whelp." Jack told him, sourly, and not bothering to remove the blanket, he scooped Will up, and manoeuvred the two of them through the door. _That_ really got Will's attention.

"Put me down!" he hissed, trying to struggle, but too tired to really pull it off effectively. "Jack, _put me down_!"

"Just how d'ye think I can look after you if ye're half a ship away from me?" Jack asked, impatiently, "I can't hear ye if ye have a nightmare, I can't tell if ye're bein sick…"

"So when _are _you going to let me go back to my own cabin?" Will asked, settling resignedly in Jack's arms, and quietly thanking god that nobody was around to see this particular degradation. "I can be sick or have nightmares anytime, Jack, and I'm not staying in your cabin for the rest of my life, am I?"

Jack stared at him. "No. No, of course not." He agreed, but somehow, he couldn't imagine his cabin being Will-free anymore. Will had only been in there five days, but he had already changed something, and Jack didn't want to lose that now. He swallowed, and murmured again, "Of course not."

He sighed, and tried not to think about Will's warm weight in his arms.

* * *

Two days later, even Jack was forced to admit that Will was practically better. The wound was too deep to be healed already, but he wasn't feverish anymore, and he was more lucid than Jack liked; a bored Will was, as Jack found out, a sarcastic Will, and while it was raining, Jack had no excuse to leave the cabin, leaving Will with nobody else to talk to. Some of the comments Will made were devastatingly accurate. 

"So, luv." Jack said, on the morning of the third day, determined to find a pretext to keep Will with him. "Why don't ye tell me something about yerself?"

Will raised one eyebrow at him. "M'name's Will Turner, son of Bootstrap Bill Turner and Alison Joliffe. I was born in England, and travelled to the Caribbean when I was eight…"

"How about some corroborative detail?" Jack asked, waving a hand with rather more flamboyance than was perhaps necessary. On the other hand, Jack seemed physically unable to do anything without flamboyance.

"'Corroborative detail'?" Will repeated. "Like what?"

"Oh, I dunno… how about how ye got to working with the dear Mr. Brown?" Jack had no particular love for Will's indented master. The idea of Will serving an indenture was enough to make him feel ill – the independence that Jack read in his friend's character made it impossible for him to imagine Will ever being forced to submit to somebody else. In fact, he was sure, seeing that Will had been shuffled off into an orphanage by Governor Swann the moment they arrived in the Port Royal, it most likely hadn't been willing; they were probably just trying to clear space in the orphanage. It was only Will's friendship with the Swann girl which had saved him from becoming a miner, or something equally life threatening.

Jack would have killed people if they'd made someone as fragile as boy-Will undoubtedly had been work down a mine.

Jack disliked Brown on those grounds, but also on the grounds that whenever he was mentioned, Will went completely stone-silent. Jack didn't know what it was that made Will fall silent under the shadow of his old master, but it couldn't be good.

And seeing as the rain had apparently settled in for the next few days, Jack was determined to find out what it was. After all, Port Royal was in easy sailing distance of Tortuga. If he'd done anything really bad, they could always sail there and kill him.

Everything was so much simpler to Jack when he was angry.

Will was staring at him, with a quiet, contemplative look in his eyes. "Mr. Brown?" he repeated, thoughtfully. Jack nodded. "What do you want to know about him for?"

"He played a large part in yer life, whelp." Jack pointed out, leaning back with studied casualness. "An' ye've been sailing with me for over three years, so forgive me for wantin' to know something a bit more solid about the man whose been on me crew – an' good enough to be First Mate, an' all – and in my confidence, but apparently hasn't let me into his."

"I thought my being Bootstraps son was enough for you? What more do you need to know? Wasn't that the only reason you took me on, anyway?"

"Oh, no." Jack laughed, easily. "Nah, mate. You had to actually be sort of good at this sailing lark… and ye're not half bad. Ye're a good hand in a fight, but all I really know about ye is yer name and yer parentage. Ye're my friend, and that helped, and I don't _need_ to know anything more, I'd like to, William."

"You know, I think that's the nearest you've ever come to giving me a compliment." Will smiled, tiredly.

"I compliment you the whole time!" Jack protested. "And don't change the subject."

"Prove it." Will challenged.

"Prove what?"

"That you compliment me the whole time."

"Will, you're changin' the subject again." Jack sighed. Silence. "Oh, fine." He huffed. "Prove that I _don't_ compliment ye all the time."

"I can't." Will pointed out. "You can't prove a negative."

Jack thought about it. "Fine then." He sighed. "Right, well… when we first met, I said ye were a good swordsman!"

"Jack, you did no such thing. You called me a eunuch, and asked me why I was such a prude." Will said, a tiny smile hovering on the right hand corner of his mouth. "I really don't think that counts as friendly encouragement and compliments."

"It was… banter…" Jack disputed weakly. He thought about it, but couldn't come up with anything else, except… "Hey! I said ye had a nice hat!"

"Sure. But you were complimenting the _hat_, not me."

"By extension, it means that ye 'ave good taste." Jack smirked, smugly.

_Hah! Get out of that, Mr. Self-Righteous._

"Anything else?"

_Dammit!_

Jack fell silent, and finally said, softly. "Will, who stabbed ye?"

Will stared at him, and for a brief second, his eyes were wide and unguarded. Then he looked down, and carefully rearranged the blanket over his legs. When he looked up again, his eyes were perfectly calm, and he said, with the faintest hint of laughter in his voice, "And you snipe at me for changing the subject."

Jack leant forwards, and tried to catch his friend's eye. "William, look at me." Will unwillingly dragged his eyes up to meet Jack's. "Ye were stabbed by someone. Who was it?"

"I don't know." Will said, and Jack left it at that, but the conversation – which had been going so well – ended with a sour taste in Jack's mouth.

It was the first time Will had ever outright lied to him.

* * *

They didn't speak much for a while after that. Jack kept himself busy around the ship, and when the weather cleared up, Will was firmly installed back in his own cabin. Sometimes, Jack's cabin felt echoingly lonely, and sometimes he longed for the comfort of another person in there, but he managed to resign himself to it fairly well. 

He fooled himself that it could be anybody, but Jack wasn't stupid enough to believe that he could fool himself forever. Somehow, this issue was going to have to be resolved, and for once in his life, Jack found himself unwilling to force it.

They set sail for the small island of St. Barthelemy, in the more Southern reaches of the Islands; and if Jack felt that Will was over-relieved when he announced this, he didn't comment on it. Their casual intimacy had been lost with Will's lie, and Jack was beginning to wonder whether they'd ever recover it.

* * *

Three days into their journey, a ship came within view. Jack ignored it; the Pearl wasn't showing any signs of being a pirate vessel, save for her black sails, and it was hardly illegal to sail under black sails, so they had no reason to be attacked by any other ship. 

That fine impersonality lasted all of twenty-five seconds, after the ship got closer, and closer, and Jack got more and more nervous about it, and finally a cannon shot rang out across the practically silent ocean.

The ball fell short, but it was a threat nonetheless, and the crew reacted accordingly.

A fine battle commenced, but Jack only realised what was going on, why the ship had attacked them, when he saw Will finally get up on deck. The former smith had been checking the bilges, and Jack knew that he probably hadn't heard anything that far down in the ship – but now he was here, something seemed to click for Jack. Will looked almost – afraid, and the mien of the entire opposing crew changed. It was as if they knew they had already won. The _Pearl_ was being attacked, because of something to do with Will. Will, who had been stabbed, and refused to tell Jack who had done it – Will, who had been acting strangely ever since. Someone wanted something from Will, and they had hurt him to get it, then had the nerve to attack the Pearl; all of this was interlinked, Jack could tell.

Jack threw himself into the fighting, determined that they weren't going to beat him, and steal Will, but his opponents were winning through force of sheer numbers, and Jack could tell, much though he wanted to deny it, that they were being beaten. Will seemed to share that particular opinion. His sword dropped for a second, his shoulders slouched before he brought them up forcibly, and called out,

"John? John Holgate, where are you?"

Jack assumed he was the captain, as he swung across, and made his way through the melange to Will. Jack himself attempted to do the same, but was finding it rather difficult to do so without drawing attention to himself.

"William." John put out a familiar hand, and cupped Will's cheek. "You've thought about it then, I assume?" Jack's blood boiled, both at the intimacy, and the question. What had Will been 'thinking about' that caused the _Pearl_ to get attacked, and this bastard to treat his William – no, just _William_ – so casually?

"You've sort of forced the issue." Will pointed out, and stepped away from the hand on his face.

"That's what I'm good at, sweetheart." The man smiled, ferally. "But the question is what are _you_ good at?"

"What happened to 'no one gets hurt'?" Will asked, coolly.

"There was a qualifier on that, Will." The captain said, tauntingly. "'Come with me and no one gets hurt' – wasn't that it? And I notice that you chose not to come with me, that you ran away from me, so I feel completely justified in hurting people."

"John, why do you want me so badly?" Will asked, still cold, but confused now as well. "What is it?"

"Something you've been doing for a long time, Will. Ever since I knew you, at the orphanage…" he ended on a suggestive note, and Jack frowned. What on earth was he talking about? You had to leave orphanages at fourteen, and Will couldn't possibly have… not Will. Not pure, innocent Will.

Will flushed crimson. "No." he snapped. "You know I won't give you that, ever. Not after the orphanage. You promised me…"

"Promises are made to be broken Will. To a pirate, promises are like laws – he only makes them when it suits him, so they don't mean anything when they're made."

"Don't try and be smart, John, you haven't got the brains to pull it off." Will told him, acidly.

Jack noticed 'John's' fists clench, and knew that Will was going to pay for this somehow. God, he needed to do something, or he was going to lose Will, and that would be the Worst Thing which could possibly happen – and to lose him to a maniac like this… He began forcing his way through the crowd, but the hostile pirates with swords weren't making it any easier for him. "Don't backtalk me, Will, you've only got one way out of this – and I'm sure even you have the common sense to realise that rudeness will only make everything harder for you. So," he locked eyes with the younger man, and said, slow and deliberate, "Yes or no? Remember, I can kill everyone on this ship and make you watch, then take you anyway. At least this way, you win a little."

"Alright then." Will muttered unwillingly.

And Jack watched in dumbfounded, paralysing horror as Will was forcibly escorted off the _Black Pearl_, and onto the other ship – their attackers' ship – and promptly sailed off.

Jack chased them, but it seemed that he had found a ship even faster than the _Pearl_, because they soon slid out of reach, and an unlucky fog came down, obscuring the ship from view.

* * *

They spent the next three months chasing the elusive ship – the _Silver Hyaline_ – sometimes following little more than rumours, until even Jack had to admit that Will was either permanently lost, or dead (which was, after all, just an extremely permanent form of lost). 

By the end of the first month, even Anamaria rarely gave Jack any sharp retorts – both out of sympathy and out of fear. Jack had been unbalanced after he lost the Pearl, but he'd had a certainty that he would get her back, as it wouldn't have been in Barbossa's interests to get her sunk. However, Will was an entirely different matter. He was completely under John Holgate's power, and if he showed too much of the spirit he was famous for, Holgate might well decide to have him killed.

Everyone knew that if they found the _Hyaline_, and found that Will had been killed, no one aboard the other ship would survive the hour. But they all equally knew that that wouldn't return Will to their captain, and that he was going to be desolate – and dangerous – if he couldn't get him back.

The second month brought more resignation but no more stability; it wasn't that Jack was mad exactly, just that anything could set him off, and anyone was liable to end up with a mouthful of Jack's fist for doing something as simple as laughing around him.

It was a testimony to how good a captain Jack was that nobody left the crew in the three months they spent searching for their missing First Mate. Normally, everyone knew, Jack was a fair captain, possibly one of the best pirate captains there was, conscientious and relatively calm, with a vein of erratic brilliance which made him seem initially mad, but after a while was shown as intelligence mixed with a sometimes-unhealthy streak of daring. At the moment, he was grieving and angry, and that made him unstable, but the crew could understand that. So long as they were still being paid, and Jack didn't go on a random killing spree, it would be ungrateful to desert him at the moment.

The third month nearly brought complete despair, but, almost exactly three months after Will had first disappeared, the _Pearl_ limped into Bridgetown for some much needed repairs. The men disembarked, heartened by the promise of a day or two of shore leave, leaving their captain aboard to grieve in peace; the last thing they were expecting was to be kept aboard by the fiery temporary First Mate, Anamaria. She pointed at the ship next to theirs, and while they were examining it, she said, firmly,

"Stay here. Wait until I tell you what to do."

They reluctantly stayed, and she knocked on the door to Jack's cabin.

Jack wasn't expecting someone to want to speak to him anymore than his crew were expecting to be made to wait, but Anamaria didn't even bother to wait for a reply, she just stuck her head around the side of the door, dark eyes alight with… something.

"Captain." She said, softly, coming fully into the room. "We've been searching for a ship called the _Silver Hyaline_, haven't we?"

"Are you deaf that you don't know the name after three months of searching, or just stupid?" Jack asked, waspishly. "Yes, it's the Silver Hyaline we're looking for."

"Don't insult me, Jack Sparrow!" she flared, but calmed immediately. "Jack, I know you're upset about this…"

"Upset?" he roared. "Good God, woman, I just lost my best friend, and my First Mate, and…" he forced himself to break off there, before he said anything that he might regret. Anamaria's eyes, surprisingly, held no hint of anger, only compassion and something that might have been excitement – but what was there to be excited about?

"Well, I think just that ship is berthed next to us." She said, steadily. Jack stared at her.

"W-what?" he croaked. "The _Silver Hyaline_?"

"Yes."

"Here?"

"Yes."

"Now?"

"Just get your head around it already, man! What do you want to do?"

He looked at her, eyes glinting, so hopeful it was like a physical object in his chest, rising and swelling until it was almost painful. "Well… I still owe you a ship, don't I?" she nodded, frowning as she tried to see where this was going. "Are the men still around?"

"I kept them back when I saw the ship 'next door' to us." She nodded.

"Well…" he considered it. "If everything goes to plan, Anamaria…" he paused. "An' if Will is still aboard, of course… I'm going to have to demote ye." She stared at him, then tried to shrug it off. "Of course, if ye decided that ye didn' want to be just an ordin'ry sailor, and decided to sail off in the _Silver Hyaline_, I think ye'd be perfectly within yer rights. Y'know. Considering it."

"Oh. Right, captain. Sorry, I should say – Commodore." She grinned. "What was the agreement you said you'd had with Barbossa? Twenty five percent of the plunder?"

He grinned, gold teeth glinting. "Let's say fifteen between friends, shall we?"

"We have an accord." She nodded, sticking out her hand. "Fifteen percent of my plunder, so long as Will is still alive and aboard that ship." He shook her hand, firmly, and she nodded, once. "Well – lets get to it, then."

"Indeed."

* * *

It took all of twenty minutes to get rid of every member of the crew left on board – Jack had no qualms about killing these people – and he gave orders that anyone looking vaguely like Will should be brought up to the captain's cabin, where he'd would be, with Anamaria, and Tawney McGry, the two people who had been keeping him sane these past months. 

When the door opened, Jack's heart leapt into his mouth, expecting to see Will's dear, familiar, defiant face. He even cautioned the pirates who were holding him to be 'gentle'. But the man who looked up at him wasn't Will. He bore a certain, superficial resemblance – but he wasn't Will.

"Kill him." He said, coldly, sick with disappointment.

"Wait!" the man pleaded, struggling. "Please! Are you looking for Turner?"

"Wait." Jack endorsed his plea. "Where is he?"

"The captain…"

"To hell with your captain!" Jack roared. "Where is Will Turner!"

"He's in the b-brig, below d-decks." The man stuttered out. "The key is in the captain's d-draw. The one under the bed."

Jack felt under the bed, and found a draw under it, cunningly cut into the thick, sea-steady frame. "It seems our missing captain has a touch of paranoia to him." He murmured to Anamaria. "Just as well he's not as subtle as he seems to think he is."

He rose, and was half-way out of the cabin, when he turned back to the man who'd given him his information. "Ye've been very useful." He said, softly. "So I won't have ye killed. But ye stole something I couldn't replace, and I don't care whether it was yer own idea or not. Ye've got to learn that some things don't get stolen by anyone – and certainly not from me." He looked up at the pirates holding him. "Make sure he learns it. Nothing too permanent, mind – but a harsh lesson nonetheless."

He didn't look back before he raced down to the brig. He didn't hear Anamaria ordering them to take him outside to teach him a lesson, or holding Tawney back, to allow Jack some privacy with Will.

* * *

In the three months since Jack had seen Will, he'd lost an unhealthy amount of weight, and the bruises looked unreal and horrific on his fragile, beautiful face. 

"I know those boot-steps." He said, not opening his eyes. "Jack?"

"Yeah." Jack said, choked up, and fumbling with the key. Will's eyes shot open.

"Oh." He swallowed. "I wasn't being serious."

"I was." Jack told him, finally getting the damn key into the lock, and opening the cursed door. He knelt carefully by Will, and looked at him. "So – how are ye feeling?"

Will smiled, tiredly. "Pretty terrible, if I'm honest. How are you?"

Jack smiled back at him, desperate to touch him, but knowing that Will would freak if he did. He needed to reach out and feel that face, the face which had haunted him for three months, make sure it was real, and tangible, that it wasn't going to slip away from him this time. If Will disappeared again – if he woke up – he might _really_ go mad. "I'm alright." He nodded, quietly. "Let's get ye out of here. Three months of this…" he trailed off.

"Of what, Jack?" Will prompted, softly, but answered him himself. "Of torment and hard labour and being locked up every night so that I don't throw myself overboard? What do you think happened to me on this ship?"

Jack knew exactly what he thought had happened to Will on this ship – and he had a sneaking suspicion that Will might at least have something of an idea what he meant, too. On the other hand, though, even Jack had the sensitivity not to go into that immediately. "Well, let's start with the basic story line, shall we?" he skirted the question. "First, how about who this 'John' person is?"

"John Holgate. Orphanage mate of mine." Will grunted, struggling to sit up. Jack hauled him upright, and Will gave him a wan smile of thanks. "He always said he'd be a pirate when he grew up. Never thought he was serious. He said he'd take me with him, too, but I thought he didn't mean that, either."

"So – ye ran into him in Tortuga." It wasn't really a question, but Will nodded reluctantly anyway. "And he asked ye to go with him?" Again, an reluctant nod. "And ye said no, because ye don' want to leave the amazing Captain Jack Sparrow – and really, who's to argue?" Will gave that same wan, tired smile. "But this John Holgate fellow, he doesn't quite see eye to eye with ye about that, I'm right, am I not?"

"Yeah, Jack. You're right." Will coughed.

"So he stabbed ye for that?"

"He… he didn't want me there just to swab decks." The younger man choked out, unwillingly, straightening and meeting Jack's eyes squarely. Will was one of the few people Jack knew who allowed terrible things to make him stronger. Will, Jack knew, had been downtrodden for years, and he had had a choice: to let people tread him into the dust, or to stand up for himself. Will had chosen to stand up for himself, and that determined strength of character came out whenever he was in any difficulty. "And he said he'd been desperate for it for nearly five years now. Desperate for me. Since the last time he saw me, back in Port Royal, before I met you."

"So… he wanted ye to warm his bed for him, did he?"

"That's such a pointless euphemism." Will muttered. "It's rather more than bed-warming. I could have dealt with that, but having some scrawny bastard press himself up against you at every given opportunity gets the tiniest bit wearing, after a while."

"He tried to take by force what wasn't being given, hmm?" Jack said, thoughtfully, already planning a painful death for the younger captain.

"Sort of." Will said, reluctantly, "He never raped me. He never forced me into his bed. He just tried to… I don't know… influence my decision a bit."

OK, so maybe it would be a slightly less painful death, after all. But still death. Yes, Jack was determined that he wasn't going to kill the bastard no matter what – Will was _his_, as much as he was anyone's. _His_. This 'John Holgate' had no right to take Will from him.

"How did he try to do that?" he asked, non-committal.

"I… He… Well, you know. Standard punishment and reward system. 'Come on, Will, I won't force you, out of respect for our friendship, but you could make everything so much easier for yourself if you'd just…'. You know what I mean, Jack, I can tell."

Jack looked up and met Will's eyes again. They were staring at him fixedly, a faint questioning look in them, and Jack sighed. "Alright, yes, I do. Seems like the man's got a though or two to rub together. It's a pity I have t'kill him for it."

"You don't." Will said, surprisingly. "Just let it go."

"Will, you don't understand." Jack said, in a rare moment of gravity, putting a hand on Will's shoulder, and grimacing as he felt Will's shoulder blade and collar bone sticking out like scaffolding. "If I let him get away with this, he'll come after you again and again and again, until he's got you. And who's to say that he'll be so polite, next time? That he won't just tie you down and take you? In any case," he added, "I look weak if I let him get away with kidnapping members of my crew. Especially members of my crew who everyone knows are particularly special to me."

"Jack?"

"People have been avoiding me these past few months, lad." Jack said, still serious. "It was like when I lost the Black Pearl. People have been calling me mad for years, but when I lost the Pearl, and when I lost ye, they started saying that I was killing mad. That I'd murder those as looked at me funny."

"What are you trying to tell me, Jack?"

"That I only get like that with the things I really… miss." Jack had to force himself to look at Will, when his eyes wanted to drop to the floor. But eye contact was the only way to show Will how serious he was. "Honestly, Will."

"I know. We're good friends."

_God, was the boy being deliberately obtuse_? Jack wondered, but then realised this probably wasn't the best time to declare his undying love to the boy – after all, he'd been held against his will, for the sake of sex, by a man who'd professed to love him. In the interests of sensitivity, Jack was going to have to wait to broach this subject. "Yeah, we're good friends."

He stood, and reached a hand down to Will, who took it. He couldn't help but wonder whether he was the only one who felt the faint, long-absent thrill as Will's hand came into contact with his own.

His first mate stumbled to his feet, and Jack put an arm around the shorter man's waist (A/N – yeah, so Will's not shorter than Jack. So what? My story, my rules ;-) ), to keep him steady.

"Why d'you come after me?" Will murmured, unexpectedly and very, very softly, blinking hard as they came out into the bright, Caribbean sunlight.

Jack paused, staring at him for a long moment as he reviewed his answers. _Because you're my First Mate, and I'm used to you. Because only you know how to manage the crew and the ship, and me, all at the same time. Because you're a damn good sailor, and a blacksmith, and a fighter. Because I missed you so much it hurt. Because I knew that the bastard who stole you would hurt you. Because I love you_. "I always come after things that are stolen from me." He said, equally softly. "It's like – a vindication of my rights." Will sighed – Jack got the feeling that the question had been a test, and he'd just failed it. Hurriedly, he added, "And because ye're my best friend – some would argue ye're my only friend – and this John should know better than to cross me about ye and think that he could get away with it. Because I'd always come after ye, William."

OK, he might have passed it this time. Maybe.

Will relaxed a bit, and said, gratefully. "Thank you. If I'd had to stay on this ship much longer, I really might have thrown myself overboard."

"Don't talk like that, William." Jack ordered, harshly. Will flinched. Jack cursed. "Sorry." He muttered. "Let's just get ye back to the Pearl, then get you healthy again, savvy? We'll get ye t' my cabin, and then I want to see what the bastards did to ye."

The man who had told Jack where Will was still on deck, beaten and bloody. Jack glared down at him, and kicked him out of the way, making sure that Will didn't see him. But Will, being Will, got a glimpse, and said, quietly,

"Jack – where are John's crew?"

"Still on board." Jack said, shiftily.

"Alive?"

"Not many of them." Jack admitted, reluctantly.

"How many?" Will asked, "How many of them are dead?"

"All of the ones that were left on board, except the one ye just saw. But it doesn't matter, Will." Jack said, persuasively. "They… they deserved it. They were thieves and kidnappers – they stole ye, alright? They stole ye, and they needed to learn a lesson for it."

"You feel really strongly about this, huh?" Will said, with a faint smile.

"Ye could say." Jack muttered.

* * *

Aboard the Pearl, Jack ushered Will into his cabin, and said, firmly. 

"Right, William. Shirt off." Will paused, and Jack, correctly interpreting the reason behind it said, softly, "William, I go whoring, and I drink and I gamble, I'm a pirate so I pillage and burn and destroy, but I don' rape. Never have. Well… there was this one instance, but it was me or Barbossa, and I think you'll agree with me when I say that I'm much better lookin' than he was."

Will gave him a faint smile, then a frown crossed his face. "Did my father…"

"Ol' Bootstrap?" Jack's lips quirked into a wry smile. "Never. Not even at gunpoint would that man've betrayed yer ma."

"Nice to know." Will murmured.

"Well – off with the shirt." He repeated, and Will sighed, but pulled his shirt off, with no little difficulty, wincing as he did so.

Jack, who had been preparing himself for broken ribs and terrible bruising, was initially pleasantly surprised. There were some fading bruises around his ribs, and across his friend's stomach, there was a nasty, hand-shaped contusion on his left shoulder, and a horrible, inflamed cut which neatly dissected his chest right down the middle, all of which put a frown on his face, but Jack had been ready to face much worse without flinching, so he was relieved. The fact that Will's ribs showed as if he hadn't eaten for weeks – which he possible hadn't – was a detail which Jack really wasn't happy with, and his hugely obvious collarbones were things that also made Jack frown, but all in all, knowing what pirates were capable of, he felt he had a lot to be thankful for.

The problem was, Will had looked like he was in a lot of pain when he took his shirt off, and these bruises weren't enough to make toughened, uncomplaining Will look like he was in that much pain.

So what was it?

Jack couldn't suppress a shiver which rippled down his spine. "Will," he said, dry mouthed, "Turn around, please."

Will gave him a faintly pleading look which did nothing but strengthen his friend's suspicions, but, met with Jack's hard, implacable gaze, he sighed, and turned round.

There was no doubt about it. His William – yes, _his_, no matter what anyone said, his, no one else's but his – had been beaten with the cat-o'-nine-tails. His back was flayed raw in places, with raised, angry red welts scaring across his shoulders and down his spine.

"How many times?" Jack asked, through numb lips. "How many lashes?"

"Twice." Will whispered over his shoulder, though Jack could see it gave him pain to twist his head round. "Two lots of twenty."

"Forty lashes." He whispered, dazed with anger. "He whipped ye, like some dog. Forty lashes." He had to force his mouth shut, his entire face white and pinched with rage, not trusting himself to speak.

Jack himself tended not to use the cat; it was too dangerous to beat a man like that, you were too likely to lose a man who was beaten by the cat, it took up too much time, too many resources – it was just too messy a punishment. Anyway, Jack tended to go for swift, sharp punishments far worse than whipping. If someone needed punishment, Jack would dole it out with unflinching severity, and his methods, when used, ended up gaining far more unwavering obedience than a whip ever would. On the whole, though, Jack had a definite preference for trying to inspire loyalty rather than fear.

The very idea that someone had lifted a whip against Will, that someone had taken that risk with Will's life, made Jack choke with black, bile-solid anger. He could barely speak for rage.

"Why." He stuttered out, speaking round the white hot lump of fury which had lodged itself in his throat. "Why did he do it?"

Will looked at him. "I can't remember." He said, flatly. "I don't know that there really was a reason."

Oh, this man was going to die, and it was going to take Jack _weeks_ to finish him off. A long, slow, painful death, with no chance of heaven at the end.

Jack had to walk out of the cabin, before he broke something, and put Will on edge. Curtly, he ordered food, a bath, a doctor, and some of Will's clothes from his cabin. No one was stupid enough to question his orders at the moment – not with his entire body screaming anger.

He got himself under control enough to go back into the cabin, where Will glanced up at him, looking faintly apologetic.

"I'm sorry." He said, shrugging. "I know you're angry…"

"Yeah, I'm angry." Jack agreed, still breathing hard from the strength of the anger which had poured adrenaline into his blood, clouding his vision, and increasing his heart rate till it was through the roof. "Mary, Mother of God, William! He had ye whipped, are ye not at all angry with him? Are ye a saint, that ye're not angry with the man who ye thought was a friend, but then beat ye like a dog?"

"I'm no saint." Will told him, softly. "I'm angry. But at the moment, I'm tired, and I just want to sleep for a long, long time, somewhere I know, with people I trust, in a room where I can open the door, if I want. A room that isn't a cage."

Jack closed his eyes, and brought himself under control with a rigid self-will which would have surprised many people who thought he had no such determination. If his acted-madness did anything for him, it made people underestimate him. They thought he wasn't for real, and it gave Jack the upper hand more often than not.

"There's a doctor coming, Will." He said, quietly, "And a bath, food, and some clothes for ye. Stay awake until then, alright?" Will nodded, and smiled at him, gratefully. "Will, I don't understand something…" Jack began, diffidently. "Why didn't ye tell me about this?"

"About what?"

"John. Yer friend. Why didn't ye tell me that it was him who stabbed ye, that he wanted ye to… to join his crew?"

Will tried to meet his eyes, Jack could see, but couldn't quite manage it, and ended up focussing on a point somewhere over Jack's shoulder. "I couldn't." he said, finally. "I don't know why. I just couldn't."

"Ye're lying." Jack told him, in a tone that brooked no opposition. "I know ye are. Please don't lie again, it hurt badly enough last time."

Will's eyes flicked over to him, then away again. "Sorry." He murmured. "Jack – you'll be angrier…"

"I don't know if that's possible, William." Jack said, flatly. "So ye may as well just tell me."

"He made me promise not to tell you." Will shrugged again. "He told me he'd kill you. And anyone else who cared about me… I don't want you to die, OK? So I didn't tell you. Maybe I should have done – but I didn't."

"Ye should have done." Jack nodded, swallowing down the searing anger again, until it felt like it was tearing a hole through his chest, trying to burn its way out. "But he should never have threatened ye in the first place. I know who's at fault here, William, and it's not _you_."

"Thank you." Will said, and shut his eyes, leaning back against the chair, then hissing in pain and arching forwards, as the whip-cuts and weals on his back contacted with the chair. Jack growled, low in his throat, and had to quickly find himself something to do, before he went on some kind of killing spree. He settled for making the bed – the last time he had bothered to do that, Will had still been on board the ship, but if Will was going to sleep in here (and it wasn't like Jack was going to let him out of his sight any time soon), he would want the bed to be neat before he got in it. Probably.

The doctor arrived before the bath and the food, this time; apparently, finding the bath tub was proving difficult, and the crew both knew Jack and liked Will well enough to give him fresh food, rather than the hard, mouldy biscuits which were the remnants of their food from the last voyage.

Jack didn't usually trust doctors; to him they were nothing more than opportunists with an education. But he had ordered Ned Kilvert to find the best doctor he could, and he had searched for Bridgetown's finest doctor, promising him double his fee if he came immediately, as Jack had ordered. Jack knew that sending Ned was the best option, as he was personally devoted to Will, and would settle for nothing less than the very best for the young man.

The man who came onto the ship was a gentle faced, elderly man, sober suited as all doctors seemed to be, who took one look at Will's own calm, kind face and warmed to him immediately. He set to work with composed efficiency which soothed Jack's own fears that he would be nothing more than a trickster, and the pirate captain stood back while he treated Will (he had been extremely indignant at the sight of the young man's back, which endeared him to Jack no end), but when he was done, Jack stepped forward, and said, urgently,

"Is he alright? Is he going to be alright?"

The doctor stared at him for a moment, trying to work out the reason for Jack's over-urgency, then obviously came to a conclusion on it, and smiled. "Your brother will be fine. He needs rest and food, and exercise, lots of oranges, or limes, if you can't get oranges – for the vitamins." He said, in answer to Jack's confused look. It didn't alleviate when he said 'vitamins', so he just moved on. "Put this on his back every day until it runs out – not too much, but enough that his wounds stay clean. Then bandage it up again. I assume you have bandages?"

"Yes." Jack nodded. "And his bruises? There's nothing really wrong with him apart from his back?"

"The bruises will heal perfectly. There is no bone damage, as far as I can tell – just bruising. Make sure he's not put under any more strain though, for at least a fortnight, maybe more, then he'll be fine."

The doctor left as the food arrived, and Jack sent the sailor for oranges as soon as he had taken the plate of food off him. Will rolled his eyes, but Jack said, firmly,

"Ye're going to get better, William, if it's the last thing I do, alright? So don't complain. Just eat yer food." He was worried when Will couldn't manage even half of what was on the plate, but relaxed when Will said, practically:

"You remember being really hungry, don't you? Even when people gave you food, you couldn't eat all of it, because you knew you'd be sick if you did."

Jack did remember it, all too vividly, so he didn't fuss. He _did_ insist, though, that Will ate a whole orange, when the oranges arrived at the same time as the bath.

The dirt fairly floated off Will, leaving him looking pale and vulnerable, and even thinner than he had looked before; and he couldn't really have afforded to lose weight when he'd been with Jack before. The young man had always been slender, but now he was positively skinny, and Jack didn't like it at all.

When the younger man had bathed, Jack had handed him an over-large shirt of his own (Will's clothes had apparently been forgotten about, which was alright; none of them would have been comfortable enough to sleep in anyway). Then he chivvied him into his own bed, and sat there, watching while he slept.

He could hardly believe that Will was back – that after three months of absence, he was here again, within touching distance. It took all his willpower (pardon the pun) not to grab the boy and refuse to let go; he had missed Will so much that now he was here, it seemed unbelievable that there should be a limit to their relationship. But, for once in his life, Jack was treading lightly, acting with caution – because, no matter what his reputation was, no matter what he had done, and people said about him, there was one man Jack would never, ever hurt, and that was Will Turner.

Admittedly, he wouldn't allow anybody else to hurt him either, and that was why, when he found him, Jack was going to kill John Holgate.

* * *

For the next two weeks, they stayed in port (the sailors loved it, having two weeks of virtual shore-leave), and Jack stayed almost constantly by Will's side. It was like it had been before, with better weather, and no mysteries hanging over them. Will was just as impatient to get up, Jack was just as determined he shouldn't, and they were both equally stubborn about it. 

Jack had only left the Pearl to get some more oranges, but he ended up finding something much better.

In the shop that Anamaria assured him sold oranges, he found a man whom he vaguely recognised. Not entirely sure who he was, he kept a sharp eye on him, pretending to be examining the fruit while he was at it. Then a snippet of speech came back too him, one that he associated with the face in front of him.

_"The question is… what are you_ _good at?_

Jack gave the man his full attention. It was him – it had to be him. The man who had stolen Will, who had had Will beaten, who had starved and over-worked his Will… all these things made Jack very unhappy with the man in front of him. And a very unhappy Jack Sparrow meant a very dangerous Jack Sparrow, which meant a very dead John Holgate.

He drew his pistol, marched over to 'John'. Digging it into his side, he said, very softly, "I wouldn't make a fuss if I were ye. If ye do, I'll kill ye."

Holgate risked a glance at his attacker, and froze. "But if I don't, ye'll kill me anyway." He pointed out, voice low and tense with fear.

"That's very true." Jack grinned, feral, gold teeth glinting madly in the soft, late-evening light filtering through the grimy shop windows. "And this gun is what'll kill ye. The bullet will go into yer side, and no one will be able to get it out, and then ye'll die, weeks later. A slow and painful death, and I can take ye anyway. So either way ye die a slow death at my hands – ye may as well come with me, and stay alive a little longer."

"But ye'll be hanged for it this way."

"Mate." Jack said, pleasantly. "I don't think so. I'm Captain Jack Sparrow, after all. I've done more than ye ever did in your short, mangy lifetime, and not been caught for it – 'sides, this is the back end of nowhere. Who'll enforce the law fer long enough t' hang me?"

"Ye'll have to kill people to get away with this. I've got a loyal crew."

Jack gave him another nudge with the pistol. "Half of that 'loyal crew' is already dead, th' other half's hidin'. An' don't think I've got a problem with killing people to get revenge on you – I'd kill a lot of other people t' do it. I already have. There's only one person in the world that I wouldn't kill, and I don't think he's one of the one's who's going to try and stop me." He paused, and leant closer to Holgate's ear. "Ye tried to take something from Will that's mine. An' ye tried to take Will from me. But I'm the most feared pirate captain for a reason, mate, and ye should have known that if I caught you, I could kill ye, and no one would lift a finger, fer fear of me. So let's have no more talk of escape and killing, savvy? 'Cos the only one whose gonna die tonight is you."

Holgate gave up, and allowed Jack to force him through the streets of Tortuga, and onto the Pearl. "You've been running from me," Jack said, conversationally, as he forced Holgate into the brig, and locked the door securely. "But you're not going anywhere now, and you're going to die for what you did to William."

He left before Holgate could make him an answer, and went to find Anamaria. They had a punishment to arrange.

* * *

Will was woken to the sound of a man screaming. God only knew when he had fallen asleep – the last thing he remembered was waiting for Jack to come back after he'd gone to fetch some oranges. He must have fallen asleep while waiting. But who was screaming? Surely the Pearl wasn't being attacked? Who would dare? 

Yanking on a pair of Jack's too-big trousers, and jamming his feet into a pair of his own boots, he followed the noise.

What he saw shocked him. A man – a rather familiar looking man – was tied to the mast, being mercilessly flogged by a man holding the cat o' nine tails. And Jack – normally peaceful, harmless, _humorous_ Jack – was watching it all with hard eyes. The man was screaming, then Jack's voice cut across his, hard and low and implacable:

"I know ye gave Will forty lashes. Ye've had twelve, and ye're screaming. How do ye think Will felt?"

A memory, which Will had rigidly suppressed, shot to the front of his mind: tied to a wooden lattice, and nine knotted ropes searing into his back, once, twice, three times, four, five, until he was screaming, and panting, and waiting for it to end, to die, to black out, waiting for someone to care enough to stop this… waiting for Jack, begging God to let it all end… but neither of them came, they wouldn't come. He had felt as if his voice would break, or if it didn't his back would… there was blood pouring down his back, and sweat on his forehead, and when they untied him, he nearly fell. Forty lashes to Will, an undeserved punishment written across his back for the rest of his life. Forty lashes to John, and it looked like Jack had cared after all. Not _wouldn't_ come. _Couldn't_ come.

"Jack…" Will said, unable to stop himself in his shock. "What the hell… is that_ John_?"

It seemed like everything froze. No one dared move – even John stopped screaming, though his breath came in loud, sobbing pants. Then Jack moved towards him, stood in front of him, and said, softly,

"Yeah. It's John Holgate."

"What are you _doing_?"

"I'm killing him." Jack said, completely matter-of-fact. "Slowly. And then, when he's dead, I'm going to leave him in the dockyard like the trash he is, and sail off, and everyone will know that crossing Jack Sparrow is a stupid idea, because ye'll die for it. And touching Will Turner is a sure way to get Jack Sparrow to kill ye."

"Jack. You've got to stop."

"I can't." Jack shrugged. "An' I won't. He's goin' t' die fer touching you. Fer tryin' to hurt you, fer takin' you away from me. I won't forgive him fer that, an' fer once, I'm not gonna let ye talk me into decency, Will."

"Oh God, Jack. You can't do this."

"But I am, so it's a fair bet to say that I can." Jack pointed out, calmly. The entire crew was watching them, waiting for one of them to back down – John, forgotten, collapsed against the mast, breathing over-hard.

"If you've got to kill him, do it quickly, at least." Will begged. "Please, Jack. If you feel you have to kill him, at least get it over with. He's… he's not a bad person."

"'Not a bad person'!" Jack yelled, completely forgetting the crew, John Holgate, anyone except Will. "He kept ye a prisoner for three months! He whipped ye, and starved ye, and locked ye up, I think he's a bad enough person to warrant it!"

"Please, Jack." Will said, his voice soft with embarrassment, his face visibly flushed with it, even in the moonlight, which seemed to bleach all other colour away. "Kill him quickly."

"That's a bitter gift from ye, Will." Holgate rasped out, with a sour laugh. "Thanks for that. An' as for you, Jack Sparrow – what happened to 'I don' think he's one of the one's who's goin' t' try and stop me'?"

"Like you said, _Captain_." Jack's voice dripped venom. "It's a bitter deliverance, coming from the man who was once yer friend, isn't it? Maybe ye shouldn't have treated him like dirt. Will's as loyal as could be to those who are loyal to him…"

"Loyal!" Holgate laughed, hoarsely, "That slut!" Beside Jack, Will stiffened, and the crew shifted, a murmur of anger rippling through their little crowd. The man holding the whip twitched it, angrily, but Holgate paid no heed. "Ye didn't know him at the orphanage we were at. He was apprenticed out at twelve because he couldn't keep his legs shut, and his master screwed him more than once before he got him safely in his home. Blacksmith indeed…"

Will turned away. "Kill him quickly." He repeated, in a low voice. "Please."

The gunshot rang out even before he was fully in the cabin. He couldn't look round; he just ignored the death of an old friend who had turned out to be less of a friend than he'd thought. He didn't want to think about the conversation he was going to have with Jack, about what Holgate had said. He didn't want to know. Quietly, while Jack dealt with the disposal of the body, and other various things, Will drank himself into oblivion in his friend's cabin.

* * *

Will was passed out on the table when Jack got back to his cabin. He had disposed of Holgate's body on the docks, as he had said he would, with a rough notice, saying 'Be Warned', in mockery of the notice put by all hanged pirates. People would know it was from him as soon as the body was recognised – the whole of the island knew that Jack Sparrow had been looking for John Holgate. 

There was an empty bottle of rum in front of the younger man's body, and Jack sighed and smiled, sadly.

"Stupid fuck didn't even pick the good stuff." He muttered, and pulled Will's shoulder's back. His heart twinged when he saw Will's face – the boy had obviously been crying.

"Oh, William." He said, with a quiet, cheerless smile. "Let's get ye to bed."

He hefted the younger man into his arms, and carried him over to the bed, where he laid him gently down, and put a spare blanket over him. That done, he took the boy's shoes off, and settled himself down on the large, comfortable chair next to the bed.

* * *

He woke to the sound of violent retching, and saw Will throwing up out a window – or, rather, he saw _half_ of Will throwing up out the window. The bottom half, to be precise: the rest of him was leaning out the window, and if Will wasn't very careful, he was going to go the same way as his own vomit. 

Just to be on the safe side, Jack grabbed Will around the waist, to steady him, and was rewarded by Will struggling madly in his arms, desperate to get away. When he was satisfied that Will was far enough in the cabin to be safe, and that he wasn't going to be sick, he let go.

"Don't touch me!" Will screamed, hoarsely, his voice rough with sleep and bile. "I'm not your whore!"

Jack fell back as surely as if Will had slapped him, like one of the real whores he'd had. "Ye're no one's _whore_, Will." He said, confused, "Least of all mine – what're ye talkin' about?"

"John." Will said, and the very name was like acid. "What he said, last night… everyone's going to think I'm a slut. That they don't even have to ask, for me to give it to them…"

"Will, everyone here knows ye. They know that ye haven't done that before, what he said doesn't change anythin'…"

"But it _does_!" Will yelled. "They know about it now. All of it. Brown, the orphanage, _everything_, Jack. Everything I ever tried to keep a secret, and he tells you all in five seconds! He's ruined it – you're never going to think of me as your friend now!"

Sensing that this, too, was not a good time to broach the subject of more-than-friendship, Jack said, firmly, "Nothin' could ever stop me thinkin' of ye as a friend, William. Nothing. Ye're father was a friend o' mine, and ye're the same, alright? But I think, seein' as ye've brought it up, that we should have a talk about these secrets ye say ye've been keeping."

"It's nothing." Will said, softly.

"But it's not." Jack pointed out, "Or it wouldn't be worth keepin' it a secret."

"Where do you want to start?"

"How about in the orphanage, hmm? And we'll work up to our dear friend Mr. Brown, erstwhile master of one indented William Turner, and Master Craftsmen of Port Royal. He was also a pretty proficient drunk, as I remember it, but that's a story for a different day." He fixed Will with a interrogative stare, and settled down for a long story.

Will started reluctantly, playing with the edge of the shirt he'd been wearing last night.

"I was ten the first time." He muttered, and Jack stared. "Some man who told the orphanage Beadle that he was thinking of adopting. He was allowed in a room with me, on his own – then he said that I'd been leading him on, when I told people. So they said I was a slut, that I'd end up as a whore."

"But yer not a whore." Jack said, encouragingly. "If you were a whore, starting at ten would be precocious; but ye're not, so it's just wrong, William."

"It was a damn close run thing, though." Will said, quietly. "If Brown hadn't taken me in, the orphanage would have thrown me out aged fourteen, and then what would I have done? I'd've been turning tricks quicker'n you could say 'prostitute'."

"So – what happened after that?" Jack asked, eager to move Will's thoughts away from that, more morose viewpoint.

"Oh… once the older boys – that means John, too, by the way; he was three years older than me – found out about it, they thought it was funny, they thought it was a good idea. John… John never did anything. He was a friend, or I thought he was – and a good friend, at that. But anyway. That's how he knew I was a slut."

"Emphasis on 'was' there, William. Make sure it stays in the past tense." Jack said, firmly. "Yer not any more. Ye barely classified as it then. Rape, pure and simple, pretty much." He paused. "What about Brown? How does he come into it? Holgate said he screwed you…"

"Yeah." Will laughed, bitterly. "He did that alright."

"We can always kill him." Jack suggested, hopefully.

"I think we've done enough killing in my name." Will retorted, firmly. "Let's leave the death toll as it is for the moment, shall we?"

"Pity." Jack shrugged. "Oh well. But why did Brown take ye on as his apprentice?"

"Dunno." Will said, dully. "Guess I was just too good to miss, or something. Maybe he just needed an apprentice… except I wasn't really even that, I was just serving an indenture with him, and he decided to treat me as if I was his apprentice. I guess he knew that no one wanted to serve under him – he wasn't the best of blacksmiths, and no one with a choice would have studied with him. So he used me as a sort of indented apprentice. He taught me the basics of metal-working during the day, and screwed me at night."

"Are ye _quite_ sure ye don't want t' kill him?"

"Yeah. I'm sure." Will dredged up a weary smile. "Thanks."

"So when did he stop?" Jack pressed, quietly, after another, tactful pause.

"When I got bigger than him, and started practicing sword fighting. That was when he thought I was independent, I guess – too independent for him to risk losing through mistreatment. He needed someone to bring in the money, after all."

"If you knew it was mistreatment, why didn't you say anything?"

"Who to?" Will asked, hopelessly. "I knew what happened when I told people, Jack. They don't believe me – some indented servant, who's lucky enough to be treated like an apprentice, and even given good clothes into the bargain? I'd get jailed for sheer bloody ungratefulness."

"What about Miss Swann? Elizabeth?"

"Abuse of friendship." Will returned, promptly. "And what do you think I'd have said, Jack? I was besotted with her. I thought she was the best thing to walk God's earth. How could I ever have admitted that my master buggered me every night? How would you go about starting that particular conversation with the woman you loved?"

It gave Jack a painful twinge to remember Will's all-consuming love for the Swann girl, but he shook it off, and sighed. "Good god, Will…"

"It's alright, Jack." Will interrupted him. "Really. I mean, if I'd complained, I wouldn't have stayed in that forge two minutes. I needed to… to let him. It made him keep me, so I learnt a skill. I got lucky – and then I met you, and I got away from it all. It's alright." He repeated, sounding more like he was trying to convince himself than Jack.

"Of course it's not 'alright'!" Jack yelped. "Ye were raped! For years! That's doesn't qualify as 'alright'!"

"Maybe not to you." Will shrugged. "But it was a way of surviving, for me. And it wasn't rape. Not really."

"Would ye ever have started it yerself?" Jack asked, sarcastically. "Would ye ever have kissed yer Master, asked him t'screw ye? Did he ever stay with ye afterwards, call ye somethin' sweet, tell ye that he loved ye? Did ye ever want him to? Did ye ever, _ever_ want him to fuck you?"

Will screwed up his face in disgust, both at the image and Jack's crude chose of language. "No." he admitted. "Never."

"Then it was rape." Jack said, firmly. "Even if it was a survival thing, it was rape. Ye didn't want it, ye didn't ask for it, even if ye didn' fight it, all those men raped ye. And they deserve to burn in hell for it."

"Then let's find ourselves another circle of hell for when we get there, alright?" Will said, flippantly, "Because I don't think I want to fraternise with them again."

"Oh, don't worry." Jack smiled, grimly. "I wouldn't let 'em touch ye. It'd be too much like a good thing for the Devil to allow, anyway. Pleasure in hell?"

"I suppose not." Will agreed.

There was a deep, comforting silence. Jack reached out a hand, and picked up Will's, from where it lay, lax and heavy in his lap. He looked down at it, tracing the fine bones along the back. "I missed ye." He said, still looking down at the hand he held. "So much, William."

"I know." Will nodded. "I missed you, too."

"Yeah." Jack managed to choke out. "Don't leave."

"It wasn't exactly my choice last time." Will pointed out, ironically. "Given the choice, I wouldn't have left, and I don't intend to leave any time soon."

"Nice to know." Jack said, and put Will's hand back on his leg, standing up and stretching. "Well." He said, abruptly, "Now all the excitement's over, I guess we'd better get the ship ready fer all the boring, every day things. Y'know, enough food to last us a couple of months of pillagin', murder and thievery."

"Oh yes." Will nodded, standing too, and beginning to smile. "The usual. I'll make stock lists, shall I?"

* * *

Jack kept Will in his cabin for over a month after that, claiming that he had nightmares whenever Will wasn't there. Will had rolled his eyes at this latest claim, but acquiesced with very little fuss – Jack suspected that Will really did have nightmares when he wasn't with him, but he never intended to check this theory out. 

At first, Jack slept in the chair, and Will in the bed. When Will got a little better, he insisted that Jack take the bed for the next week – 'to catch up on the sleep he must have missed sleeping in that chair'. The week after that, they took it in turns to sleep in the bed. In the last week, Jack said, exasperated,

"We may as well share the bed, William, it's big enough!"

Will had frozen in the act of pulling a blanket round himself and curling up in the large chair. For an entire minute, there was no sound whatsoever in the large cabin, and Jack was beginning to regret saying it, was on the verge of apologising, when Will gave a tentative smile, and nodded, shuffling over to join him on the bed.

"More comfortable, isn't it?" Jack said, sleepily, making a point of rolling away from his friend. Will nodded, lying on top of the covers with the blanket over himself.

It started out that way. By Wednesday, Will had relented, and allowed himself to sleep under the covers too. On Friday, Jack woke to find Will's head on his shoulder, as the First Mate slept, silent and curled up against his captain, warm and pliant in sleep.

When Will woke, he had apologised profusely, and promised never to do such a thing again, but the odd look on his friend's face made him pause.

That night, safely hidden by the darkness, Will listened as Jack's breathing eased out into the long, slow inhalations of the deeply asleep, and lay on his back, thinking.

He knew that a lot of people would call him unlucky, that many other men would have shunned him for what had been done to him as a child, just as surely as he knew that Jack never would. He thought back over the time he had spent with John Holgate, the long, despairing months when he'd thought he'd never know freedom or see Jack again. It was strange how Will interlinked those two in his mind; freedom, to Will, meant Jack. Jack would never think of holding Will back. He would defend him with his own life, but he would never dream of stopping Will doing something.

Well, Will amended with a smile, nothing except sleeping in his own cabin.

He looked at his friend, fast asleep with his mouth slightly open, looking relaxed in a way he never did during the day. During the day, Jack was always tense – humorous, light-hearted, but always wary. Asleep, he was none of these things. He was relaxed, trusting Will enough to be completely vulnerable around him.

Will remembered reading that you could gauge your feelings about a person by how you reacted to seeing them asleep, and knowing that it was true, because he always felt disgusted by seeing Brown asleep, and generally felt a welling urge to hurt him in some way.

It was true now, as well. Seeing Jack sleep made him feel nothing but affection for him. He knew that most people would have classed Brown as the better man of the two, but Will knew better. Jack was the honourable man, and Will loved him for it.

_Hold on_, Will thought, surprised by his own mind. '_Loved'_?

A hundred little things ran through his mind. Jack, frantic with worry, and a strange doctor Will didn't know, after he had been outside in the rain for so long. That particular memory was blurry with fever, but the basic concept was simple. Jack had been worried about him. Jack had cared.

Another image – Jack carrying him back up to his cabin – "Just how can I look after ye if ye're half a ship away from me?".

Another, from a longer time ago: "Me? I'm dishonest. And you can always trust a dishonest man to be dishonest – honestly. It's the _honest_ ones you have to look out for, because you can never tell when they're going to do something incredibly… stupid." His first action the day had been to help Will. Caring.

Then another, far more recent: "He's going to die fer tryin' to hurt ye. I won't forgive him fer that." Still caring.

Jack had searched for him for three months, pretty much unceasingly from what Anamaria had told him, before she sailed off in the _Silver Hyaline_. He had been mad with worry, grieving desperately for him. He had missed him more than anyone else in the world. Despite everything, still caring.

And, Will thought, affectionately, how could he not love him back? He knew that sex was something he was going to have an issue with, but love was fine, it wasn't like it was something new he was going to have to work on feeling. The propensity to love Jack had always been there, it had just been turning it from an inclination into an actuality which was the problem. And Jack had never pushed him, never demanded anything of Will that Will wasn't going to give – and it was that tolerance which allowed Will to fall in love with him. Head over heels, completely out of control in love with the madman he was in bed with.

Life just _loved_ playing these little jokes on Will, it seemed.

With a sigh, he moved over, and laid his head on Jack's shoulder again, unsure whether he would be able to sleep, but far more at ease close to Jack.

He was shocked to feel an arm loop around his waist, bringing him closer to Jack's side.

"Thought ye'd never stop starin' at me, lad." Jack murmured, sleepily. "I was startin' to wonder whether I should tell ye to stop thinking and go t' sleep."

"You were awake?"

"No, I always sleep talk and make sense." The older man returned, sleepy but sarcastic nonetheless. "Yeah, I was awake."

"Sleep well, Jack." Will told him, letting his head drop onto Jack's shoulder, and putting a tentative arm of his own over Jack's chest. He heard Jack's heartbeat slow a little as the man relaxed halfway into sleep. "I love you. Or I think I do." He added, very, very softly.

"Well, finally." He heard the drowsy whisper, a few seconds later. "I love ye too. I'm pretty certain."

"We're so decisive." Will said, with a sudden burst of humour.

"Makes life so much more interesting if we're not." Jack pointed out, still half-asleep, but awake enough to realise how much hung on this conversation. "But I'm pretty sure when it comes to ye."

"I look forward to learning more of your philosophy, Jack."

"I can't wait to hear yours, whelp, now go t' sleep."

A few minutes later, all that could be heard was heavy, sleeping breaths.

FIN.

* * *

My god, it's finally over. Long winded little bugger, aren't I? 

Please tell me what you thought!

Lol, etta. xxxx


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